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I S S U E - * J A N U A R Y 2 0 , 1 9 9 4
: File !
: Intro to Issue 8
: Billy Biggs
: File @
: Cyberpunk Lives!
: Ben Iglauer
: File #
: Eyecandy
: KRISJONES@delphi.com
: File $
: SeaQuest DSV: The Death of Intelligent Science Fiction
: The Eyeball Kid
: File %
: What is Cyberpunk Music?
: Billy Biggs
: File ^
: Cyberpunk Music
: G Didcock
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File - !
-Billy Biggs, da nerd.
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File - @
>From: benigle@efn.org (Ben Iglauer)
Cyberpunk Lives!
by Ben Iglauer
For the last 7 years, it has been trendy to say that cyberpunk is
dead. This all may have began in the late '80s, when many of the
premier cyberpunk science fiction writers were declaring that the
subgenre they founded had become cliched beyond belief, and lost
the edge of originality it once had. People like John Shirley,
Bruce Sterling, and William Gibson were saying that the original
work was no longer being down in the Genre.
It was just after the gulf war, a war that let the country watch a
cruise missile strike through the viewing lens of the missile, when
I had the opportunity to see Gibson read from The Difference Engine
at Black Oak Books in Berkeley, California. Gibson described is
fears of becoming pigeon holed not just as a science fiction
writer, but as a 'cyberpunk'. He reiterated that the edge of the
science fiction genre had moved away. That same year, Thomas Disch,
an old 'new wave' writer, had an essay printed in the New Yorker
about how science fiction has in general a juvenile oriented
literature, cyberpunk as being based on slick hollywood movie sets
(ala Blade Runner), and dismissing William Burroughs as a "gross
out".
To an extent it was true. In science fiction literature, many of
the superficial conventions of cyberpunk had become cliched.
Neurojacks, console cowboys, rebels on designer drugs, mirror
shades and black leather, etc. had all been appropriated into
boring, formula tales of detectives, cops, lone heros, and
militarism. There was even a flurry of cyberpunk role playing
games, which were not based on any particular work, but on the
common devices of the genre as a whole: yakuza, implant weapons,
mega-corporations-- cool games, but not necessarily a sign of a
vibrant and original literature.
But while some of the devices that the genre had started with may
have lost their metaphoric punch, the essence of cyberpunk had not
died, but was in fact thriving to an extent that no other form of
science fiction ever really has. Scientists, consciously imitating
the genre, were creating virtual reality and biofeedback interfaces
for computers. Hackers in Germany were arrested for using the
internet to access and transport information to the KGB (one of
them, Pengo was a serious Gibson fan, and even wore black leather).
The Secret Service raided Steve Jackson Games, stealing their
computers, and delaying the printing of GURPS Cyberpunk. People,
calling themselves 'cyberpunks' faced off against the US
government's efforts control encryption technologies. Only perhaps
in the space program can science fiction be said to have such a
profound resonance in our understanding of where we are, and what
we are about as a civilization.
Artists far outside the genre like Mark Pauline, Negative Land, and
Kathy Acker, were innovatively utilizing a cyberpunk understanding
in their work. Magazines like Mondo 2000, Boing Boing, and Wired
appeared; magazines that were not devoted to cyberpunk literature,
but to what was now being called 'cyberpunk culture'.
The essence of cyberpunk can not die, because it is an insight into
what it is to be a human in the kind of post industrial,
capitalistic, technological civilization that we are a part of.
Every time a homeless person asks you for a quarter while listening
to his old Sony walk man; every time you read about AIDS,
Singapore, the violence initiative (to drug inner those inner city
residents designated as the most likely to become violent), chip
heists, PGP, work place surveillance, or global warming; every time
you log into the internet, donate sperm, or 'borrow' a piece of
software, you are taking part in a reality that cyberpunk speaks
to. It uses metaphor to up the volume on this reality. The louder,
the better.
Even after the epitaphs, cyberpunk literature (often called 'post-
cyberpunk' now) is not only remaining vital, but seems to be
getting better. Virtual Light is William Gibson's greatest work
yet, Neal Stephanson's Snow Crash is hilariously Pynchonesque, and
Jack Womak's books (Terraplane, etc.) are brutally emotional, and
poetic.
William Burroughs said that language is a virus from outer space.
Metaphors, if they find a suitably ripe host, reproduce and spread
rapidly, transforming their symbiotic partners in the process. As
cyberpunk metastasizes throughout the culture, we start to see
strange symptoms manifest, like Billy Idol recordings (Niel Young
really beat him to it by more than 10 years with Trans), post-
apocalyptic B action flicks, and cyber buzz words. These are not
signs that cyberpunk is dead, but signs that it has taken over its
host, and is in the process of devouring it.
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File - #
>From: KRISJONES@delphi.com
Eyecandy
they poison my mind
they make me see things i don't what to
-product of the system-
they tell me
they do tell me...
i try to hide, but what they say is everywhere
hated, because i submit
but what choice have i?
none
no choice
i cannot help myself
on the teevee they say...
on the radio...
in the magazines, they say it everywhere
oh god, i think i'm falling
i can't help it
this is how they raised me...
when i was old enough to think
they pushed it into my head
now i'm a man possessed
possessed no chance to run away
the deadliest disease in the world has no cure
addiction
(gimme)
oh god, i am falling
falling
i am falling!
but they taught me!
they told me this was right
they told me how to think...
they told me, and i listened
i listened!
why?
why couldn't i see they had poison on their tongues?
- in their eyes
- held in their hands
they gave me something
something i can never give back
because it's eating me alive
and i'm dying
falling
(no parachute)
can't help myself
no one else will help me
i'm diseased
oh god, the ground is getting closer
help
their god is a three-letter word...
and i con't help but bow down to him
bow
but i love it
(they made me)
i love it
(i have no choice)
i love it
(god, it feels so good)
i love it
(i can't help but give in)
i love it
(no will-power)
no more power
no power
they have it all
and they're using it against me
against me
oh god, i'm almost compost
dying
tell you - don't listen!
don't look!
don't let them do to you what they've done to me
(but now i have no choice)
slave to to all the poison
oh god...
i don't know what to do
i'm riding on a train that goies someplace i don't want to be...
(no)
and it's going so fast i can't jump
i can't
now that i've learned, i can't go back
it's too late for me
too late
they took my hand and led me through hell
and i saw that it reminded me of home
sickness
i wish i could grow wings and fly away...
take a spaceship to a far-away world...
and live, undisturbed
(no more persecution)
oh god, i've hit the ground and splattered
(can't get up)
oh god, i'm dying
(and no one has a band-aid)
now i sit here, bleeding
watching my soul drip away before me
dying voice, "call 911" ... fades away
oh god...
oh god...
yea, though i walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil...
i will fear no evil
fear no evil
then why am i afraid?
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File $
>From: eyeballk@orion.login.qc.ca (The Eyeball Kid)
Subject: Article
SEAQUEST DSV:
THE DEATH OF INTELLIGENT SCIENCE FICTION
There are three people in Hollywood who have done more to popularize
Science Fiction than anyone else: George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and
James Cameron. They've done so much for the genre I don't have to list
their projects because anybody who's a Sci-Fi fan knows the material I'm
talking about. In fact the two highest grossing movies in history are
"Jurassic Park" and "ET.", both of which are labeled "Science-Fiction".
But have you ever heard anyone defend the SF qualities of "ET." or
"Jurassic Park"? Have you ever heard anyone debate the ethical
ramifications, the technological or sociological impact that might occur
if the events in either of these films actually took place? Of course
not. Even a bunch of losers like the average Sci-Fi (or worse, SF) fan
have better things to do with their time (to qualify my argument at this
point, I'll write-off Jeff Goldblum's speech about Chaos theory and life
finding a way to survive as simplistic subtext).
And in fairness, these films were never intended to suggest ideas that
might have contemporary relevance or meaning. You're not supposed to ask
yourself "what if?", you' re supposed to pay your money and have a great
experience. A glance at the box office receipts would suggest most
people did.
I might be a bit of a loner on this point, but from the collected bodies
of work of Cameron, Lucas, and Spielberg, a "great experience" is about
the best I could hope for. Perhaps I'm being too finicky, but I always
had a soft spot for "Forbidden Planet", "Seconds", "2001", "Clockwork
Orange", "The Day The Earth Stood Still", "Solaris", "The Andromeda
Strain", and "Blade Runner" -- SF that made you THINK about a concept,
made your mind grapple with an elusive idea; something too creepy to
articulate in any language but cinema (monsters of the Id, more human
than human, etc.). In fact, Lucas and Spielberg probably felt the same
way at one time: THX 1138, and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS are at least gestures
towards that age of "great concepts".
So where did it fall apart? Paragraph 1: "POPULARIZED". They
"popularized Science Fiction". They used Science Fiction as a crutch to
hold up a story that in any other genre would be called "juvenile" or
"simplistic". STAR WARS and ET are fairy tales; TERMINATOR and T2 are
urban westerns (you want to debate this? See Tarkovsky's "The Sacrifice"
first: it covers every SF concept in T1 and 2 in fine philosophical
detail -- and ISN'T an "SF" movie); Jurassic park is a monster movie
(great monsters). Take away the Sci-Fi references and you have a story
with no excuses.
Science Fiction's greatest strength is it's ability to make ideas
articulate, to allow us to grasp abstracts (ethical, moral, and
philosophical) and interpret them. Hard-edge Science Fiction packs
kick-ass cerebral hardware.-- Orwell's "1984" is so good it's not even
considered SF. And Science Fiction's biggest weakness is as a crutch for
a simplistic story ("We'll use the phasolator to reverse the polarity of
the big machine with the stuff stuck on it and that'll get rid of those
evil aliens/androids/smugglers).
But tell this to Steven, George, or James, and they'll think (they won't
say it but they'll think it) "Who cares? It sells tickets, let's go with
it!"
Maybe I'm an old fool. I learned my SF from Late Night Seventies TV, and
from well thumbed library books (many with the pictures missing) talking
about movies I might see if they came to TV, and if my parents let me
stay up late -- because there was no video back then. I remember when
Dr. Who was still shot in black-and-white video-tape, and second for
second of air-time it beat the crap out of any TV Sci-Fi that's on now.
I remember the opening credits from THE OUTER LIMITS ("do not adjust your
set, we control the vertical, we control the horizontal"), and I still
get chills. There was something alien hidden in the words and pictures
back then; something no one could articulate, but which we all realized
when we thought about it the next morning; not the "child-like wonder"
that Stephen and his cronies shovel down our throats, but a spy-hole into
something darker and more secretive. Like maybe WE had all been taken
over in our sleep, and THEY didn't know about it.
I remember when Science Fiction Television had the same quality of drama
as Westerns, or Cop Shows. Can you imagine that today? Can you bare the
thought of a Science Fiction Television Series with the same quality of
writing, the same dramatic shooting style of LAW AND ORDER, or NYPD BLUE,
or even HILL STREET BLUES or St. ELSEWHERE?
IT USED TO BE THAT WAY!
Yeah, yeah. Call me nostalgic, but I tried to watch SEAQUEST, and if
Spielberg had been in my apartment at that moment I'd have slit his smug
little throat. I've never been so pissed-off by a TV hour in my life.
And based on the success of SEAQUEST, Spielberg will executive produce
another "Sci-Fi" series: "Earth 2". It's about the colonizing of a new
planet.
Great. Just what I was looking forward to in the 95 TV Season.
Well, I can always not watch, right? I can always shut off the tube, or
rent "Things To Come"? Yeah, but I've seen it, and all the others, and
since the genre's not completely dead I live in hope. Every time I watch
Star Trek TNG I say a silent prayer for the day an adult will once again
write SF Television. Every time I watch HOMICIDE LIFE ON THE STREETS, I
wonder what it would be like if Science Fiction TV had grown up the same
way Police Drama did.
And every time I watch SEAQUEST I turn off the sound and read a book -- I
like watching the VIDEO TOASTER SPECIAL EFFECTS!
If you want to mail Steven personally and congratulate him on his new TV
success, or deride him for being a complete sell-out and a traitor to
both TV and Science Fiction, here's the address:
Amblin Entertainment
100 Universal City Plaza
Bungalow 477
Universal City
LA CA 91608 - 1085
Tel: 1-818-777-4600
(The AMBLIN fax number is confidential and they won't give it to you
unless they know who you are. If you want to fax, sit tight for my next
tirade)
If you really want to get his attention, try an intelligently critical
letter including the following::
Dear Mr. Spielberg:
After one hour of SEAQUEST, I know for certain:
YOU WERE SPAWNED BY LAWYERS.
Be seeing you,
The Eyeball Kid
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File %
>From: ae687@freenet.carleton.ca (Billy Biggs)
Subject: Cyberpunk Music
WHAT IS CYBERPUNK MUSIC ? ? ? ?
[ or more appropriately, What music is Cyberpunk?? ]
Many repetitive threads have gone through alt.cyberpunk asking the
question: What is Cyberpunk Music? The answer is not simple. Due to the
fact that every defenition of cyberpunk can be argued to the point of non-
existence, trying to define a genre of music is not a simple task.
I would like to say that all opinions expressed in this article do not
necessarily reflect the entire population, or even close. They are my
opinions and you may write your own if you want to.
This article is far from being finished. I only grazed the surface of
a few bands, not even going into great detail. I expect to expand. If you
have any submissions or suggestions, email me.
[FLA]
To me, the closest thing out there to a "Cyberpunk" group is probably
Front Line Assembly. The sound is a mix of techno-like beats, ?interesting?
lyrics and added samples. Their 'tactical NEURAL IMPLANT' CD I would consider
extremely cp in nature.
{ Taken from 'Mindphaser'
A war of technology
Threatens to ignite
Digital murder
The language of machines
}
The Mindphaser video is excellent. A mixture of high-tech weponery,
computer animation, japanese writing, Cybertech and mech-like machinery used
to create an extremely cyberpunk atmosphere.
Bill Leeb & Rhys Fulber, also in groups Intermix, Will, Delerium, Noise
Unit and Fear Factory , are due to release a new FLA CD in Feb.
this year (as in, next month).
Expect a more detailed review of FLA [if you can write one, please do]
regarding their works and the relation they have to cyberpunk and cp themes.
[Front 242]
The british Electronic Body Music group is commonly considered cyberpunk.
The sound is a mix of noise, sounds, samples, synths and dancy beats.
Described (by MuchMusic) as being a mix between Kraftwerk & DAF. The music
is extremely electronic, busy (it's best to hear on CD, you almost need the
sound quality with 06:21:03:11 UP EVIL) and alternative. Front is not a
mainstream group, although rumor has it that they are trying to change that
(good or bad?). With their latest release, 05:22:09:12 OFF, Front 242 has
added a female vocalist (99 Kowalski). Rumor has it that Front is creating
a new album combining the vocals of J-L De Meyer, Richard 23 and Christine
99 Kowalski to create a much different sound.
The F242 video for 'Quite Unusual' has been considered cyberpunk. Other
videos by Front are a bit more mainstream (Rhythm of Time was strange,
images of a spinning ball with knives sticking out of it, a cyborg head,
J-L D. M. singing and a mouse in a cage. CP?) yet it's more the industrial
sound that sets Front 242 away from other groups.
[Kraftwerk]
Interestingly enough, I don't ever recall Kraftwerk being mentioned as
Cyberpunk. The group to me is like a couple of german guys with a synth.
The sound is synth music. Pretty much just synths, drums and vocals. It's
not bad, if you like that kind of stuff (I do, but it's pretty weird).
[Negativland]
An interesting group with much attention on the net. The sound is
samples. Yup, lots of samples. Samples, electric guitar and drums. Innovative
idea, lots of satire. "soaked in an acid bath of irony" I can't
really give too much of an opinion, since I only own the negativconcertland
CD, but I was impressed by what I have heard.
Their latest release, FREE, is suposed to be a good listen. Keyboard
magazine, in a review of FREE, said: "The fact that Negativland, like John
Oswald, has taken sample pastiche to a high level of expressive power doesn't
settle the question of whether lifting samples from records is legally or
morally defensible. But FREE does remind us that strict copyright protection
comes at a cost - the suffocation of musicians denied the kind of access they
need to express themselves through this idiom."
Much discussion has occured in alt.cp conserning a law suit against
Negativland by Island records about a 30 second sample of a U2 song.
Questions of copyrights and related issues that don't belong in this article
but that are worthy of discussion elsewhere have arisen because of
Negativland.
[Billy Idol]
With his CYBERPUNK CD, Billy Idol has entered himself into the world
of cp, and the world of internet [idol@well.sf.ca.us]. His CD is for people
who listen to that kind of music. Idol was right on a few notes, but I'm
sure he got alot of hate mail through his Internet account.
{Taken from 'Wasteland'
In VR land
The future of fun
Tell me what to do
In VR law
Computer Crime
Um, so sublime
A Fantasy scene
In my machine
}
Whether or not his lirycs are cyberpunk, or if his attitude is cyberpunk,
or if he has read Gibson, or if he knows what he's talking about are subjects
that have recieved alot of attention. There are cyberpunks [?] who like
what Idol has done and who like his music. I'm not going to say he isn't
cyberpunk. If there are people who listen to it, maybe it is.
[Others]
[NOTICE: This list is INCOMPLETE] Other groups considered cyberpunk by
some would be some assorted EBM groups, Industrial music, Ministry, Pet
Shop Boys, Information Society, Electrik Music, Art of Noise, Devo?,
U2 (Zoo TV?), Pink Floyd, Chemlab, etc etc etc etc etc
" - In the end, real cyberpunks listen to whatever the fuck they want. "
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File - ^
>From: eomc48@festival.ed.ac.uk (G Didcock)
Subject: Cyberpunk Music
With reference to your request for information relating to cyberpunk and
music:
1. At a recent public reading and autographing session of Virtual Light
in Edinburgh, Scotland - William Gibson stated that 'Neuromancer'
contains many references to The Velvet Underground as they were one of
his favourite bands.
2. In a VOX magazine article (February 1994) William Gibson refers to
Brian Eno's 'Nerve Net' as...
"the closest thing I've heard to a soundtrack for Neuromancer"
Also, it states that William Gibson wrote the lyrics for 'Dog Star
Girl' on Chris Stein's 'Debravation'.
3. IMHO talk of cyberpunk music has to involve the ultimate cyberpunk
band (although they refuse to accept such labeling) - Sonic Youth. I
know it's cliched but I want to mention it anyway.
I don't know if this is the sort of thing you were looking for but I
thought I let you know in case you don't get VOX in the states.
--
Grant
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|eomc48@uk.ac.ed.festival | So many beautiful people that we will never meet! |
|Edinburgh University | Drink on, my friend, Drink on! |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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>> Next Issue [or in that general direction] <<
>> . I want to do a BIG BIG thing on that burning topic: <<
>> <<
>> I N F O R M A T I O N S U P E R H I G H W A Y <<
>> <<
>> I know YOU have stuff on it because everybody does. I want to <<
>> know what it is, who will run it, what will it be like, how to hack <<
>> it [Idunno] and when it's going to get here. <<
>> <<
>> And I'll write an article on it too [trust me, I've got one hell of <<
>> alot of stuff on it] <<
>> <<
>> . CP music reviews. Who is CP. Why. Lets add on to the one I <<
>> started. <<
END LINE_NOIZ.8
--
Billy Biggs Ottawa, Canada "When all else fails,
ae687@Freenet.carleton.ca read the instructions"